Quick top-hat: This article originally appeared on glennstovall.com; You can also listen to this essay on the Production Ready podcast.
Software i...
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old guy here: we never saw it as race related or anything even remotely related to that stuff, it was used for it's unambiguous meaning (notice how hard they are to replace in some use cases?)
However, now that I've been exposed to the idea, I can't get it out of my head and agree that it needs to change (but it still annoys me a little)
(also, hello neighbor!)
agree. for me this is just the works of politics being integrated in software development.
being PC does not solve anything with what we are doing as developers.
No, it doesn't solve anything related to developing software but developer's live on the same planet as everyone else and why die on this hill? It's not even an interesting hill to us (as developers).
Copyrighting a freaking API is a much more interesting hill. One that I'd be thrilled for the chance to fight Oracle to the death over :-)
Excellent article, Glenn, thank you!
I have a particular interest in this space. In 2016, I was the editor for the race section of the Responsible Communication Style Guide, which is meant for technologists who want to use precise and less harmful vocabulary that negatively impacts (or propagates stereotypes of) marginalized groups.
Other resources include:
When exploring "master/slave" terminology in MySQL earlier this year, I learned from a program participant that the earliest mention found of "master/slave" in an engineering context was in 1904.
It's incredibly important that we continue to analyze the language we use for tech terms as language evolves; in 2020, we don't use the same terms in the same context that people who lived in the 19th century do. And as devs we're already accustomed to paradigm shifts in programming languages. New concepts are introduced and with them, new labels. Updating our language is a reflection of this understanding as well as respectful of our fellow humans, since all the code we write is meant to impact real people in some fashion.
The communication guide looks awesome! I'm going to have to dig into that some more. Word choice is important and I'm glad some people have put real thought into it and put together a resource like this.
Thank you for the engineering context paper. I'll look that one out.
Often the social problems are with mis-use of terms as euphemisms for the local cultural bias ("what school did you go to?" - Saint X means they're Catholic, hence not employed here...). It's often these little 'hints' that quickly build to the misplaced biases of sexism and racism (and the others).
You mean softwares are, to some extent, centralized in on "human languages", according to client side, in particular, English?
Also, it is not only data-driven, but also tech giants driven, which their creators are largely Americans.
Otherwise, I don't even associate softwares with English, and the history behind its native speakers.
Most software companies being American isn't something I had thought about, but you're absolutely right.
I think there's an ironic bias in your article where you imply the audience for the article is entirely made up of Americans :P
Also, your link to "donate your time and money" doesn't work.
Thanks for pointed out that error, I've fixed the link.
And your totally right. I've only ever lived in the US, and its easy to think of the US as the default. Even though I can look at the analytics for the podcast and see that 1/3rd of the listeners live in a different country.
On the other hand, I have no idea about how race relations and police behavior are in other countries. I'm not an expert on any of this, and all I know is what I going on in my country, and what I see going on downtown where I live every day.
Thinking about writing and speaking to an international audience is something I'll have to work on.
To make a point of discussion: are you hiring a diverse team -> unfortunately, no not particularly in my case. This is the problem with long term systemic "racism" and "sexism" that means that there just aren't as many people from certain backgrounds that have the skills and experience. Only time and consistent positive pressure will change this and the changes happen inconsistently across the world.
My recruitment catchment is predominantly white, within the BAME (and female) communities there are less people who have considered technology as an appropriate career in the past. If I run a meritocracy on skills there will be less people proportionally from those groups than even the already low population split. So perhaps I don't want a meritocracy, my users don't live where my business is headquartered and I want to reflect them, not my hiring pool. So we try, but it isn't easy. Having an internal recruiter from the community is the only thing that helped - but sadly he moved to a different area of the country and a new role. It's hard to find another like him... yet another example of the underlying issues.
Thanks for sharing this. It's easy to be idealistic about hiring but even if you want to it can be difficult.
Excellent article, thank you!
Awesome post